Category Archives: Landscape Design

Mar242015

My visit last week to one of the great American gardens, Filoli, in northern California, was a revelation in many ways. I have wanted to visit since I first saw pictures of it years ago. The garden was designed in … Read more

Feb272015

Green is a thing. Right now it’s a missing thing. It’s what I miss most during winter and what makes me smile first in the spring–those small green shoots pushing up through frigid earth. I’ve been thinking about making flowerless gardens. Gardens that … Read more

Feb162015

Last fall, I entered a garden I designed in New Jersey in 2015 APLD International Landscape Design Awards in the Planting Design category. It was awarded the highest honor, a Gold Award. To be honest, I knew the value of the … Read more

Feb112015

I’m not an architecture critic. I am someone who loves great architecture both contemporary and historic. In my work as a landscape designer part of my focus is to create landscapes and gardens that surround the attendant architecture in such … Read more

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Jan172015

Next week I’m travelling again. This time on a search for garden antiques and vintage in the markets in Paris and parts of Belgium. I am continuing on to Rome for a few days of play after that. For the … Read more

Dec272014

When I become this inconsistent, something is going on. What has it been? Life and work. Yes, Miss R has been part of that mix, but 2014 has been an odd year. It’s been an awakening of sorts. I love … Read more

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Nov122014

It’s no secret that I’ve been exploring Art Deco forms as inspiration for garden designs. I’ve always been drawn to the geometry and order, even when I started my career as a jewelry designer. Many of the preeminent decorative styles of … Read more

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Oct222014

I hadn’t visited Skylands for about ten years, and never in the fall. I went hoping to see the last of the fall foliage and instead found stonework that was interesting in its scope and full of ideas. Formerly an … Read more

Oct142014

I had some rare time in between landscape design projects and clients last week and as I’ve been meaning to take my new camera lens out for a spin, I stopped by Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morristown to search out some … Read more

Oct72014

When I was in Chicago in August, speaking at IGC about landscape designers and their potential relationships with garden centers I took a day before and a day after to explore the city and meet up with friends. I’ve been … Read more

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Aug132014

I visited gardens yesterday in Princeton, New Jersey. The tour was arranged by the New Jersey Landscape and Nursery Association (NJNLA) and featured four very different gardens by designer Bill Kucas. What struck me about these outdoor spaces was that … Read more

Jul312014

Miss R has been in the backseat all summer. Pretend you are on a roadtrip and listening to a story on the radio…the pictures will come after we reach our destination. In a twist of weather related events and wonder, … Read more

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Jun252014

It might seem counterintuitive to add more green to a garden, but lately to my landscape designer’s eyes, green looks like it should, fresh and new. (Go ahead, groan at that word use!) Two years ago, a version of green … Read more

Jun162014

The summer issue of The Designer, APLD’s quarterly design magazine is out. In the editorial is a piece I wrote about my trip to Morocco last winter and how the patterned surfaces found everywhere there have continued to influence my … Read more

May272014

Sometimes I almost get what I wish for. When it folded two years ago, I lamented the demise of Garden Design magazine. In that piece, I also made a wish of sorts — If we, as a design discipline and community, … Read more

May152014

I’m tired of market umbrellas. Patterned or plain, they all look the same. Outdoor umbrellas used to glamorous. My shady inspiration today came from Coastal Living’s cover story a few years ago and a garden designed by A Blade of … Read more

May72014

It’s been one of the most jam packed and crazy springs in recent memory. Perhaps it is because winter seemed never ending in New Jersey and it still hasn’t really warmed up! As happens every April, I get so busy my … Read more

Apr142014

Imagine my surprise, while visiting Hillwood Museum and Gardens, when I saw this sphinx at the entrance to the formal gardens. There are four of them. I’ve seen them before, in bronze at Blairsden–the house that is also the location … Read more

Mar312014

I first noticed this emerging trend in Paris at Maison et Objet in January. Rattan furniture is back. As a material, it’s been out of favor for a while, but in the 1940s and 50s it was popular and chic. … Read more

Mar252014

Mall stores like Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel have made major investments in outdoor furniture and accessories, so I went to the mall to see what was new. Catalogs just don’t do it for me, I can’t … Read more

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Mar202014

The new Garden Design magazine promises to be full of inspiration and ideas for all of us. I lamented when the previous one stopped publishing so I’m happy about this. Their primary focus is now American gardens and designers–not just the … Read more

Mar172014

I don’t usually write about plants I haven’t grown, but I’m so starved for spring I started looking through some images thinking to do a post about early spring bloomers. Instead I found some lovely images of Asphodelus fistulosus (Hollow stemmed … Read more

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Mar152014

The Association of Professional Landscape Designers‘ quarterly magazine has just re-launched. It has been re-designed and re-imagined and I think it looks really, really great. Read it here and subscribe for free. If you are a landscape designer then you … Read more

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Mar132014

Anyone who has hung around here for a while knows that I love antique and vintage garden ornament and furniture. I buy things for my landscape design clients and often, what I’m buying has been found in Europe. Since this … Read more

Mar102014

There’s a villain in this tale. It’s Target. Yes, that big box store, who actively promotes its designer relationships and products is the bad guy of this story. What’s worse though, and it still doesn’t absolve them, is that they’ve … Read more

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Mar92014

Of course I was absolutely thrilled to be in last Thursday’s Home section of the New York Times! It was fun to think about what I would plant in a shady nook with deer. It’s exactly what I have in my … Read more

Mar42014

I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show last Friday. It was a fragrant, blooming balm for my winter starved soul. There was, as always, inspiration everywhere. This year’s theme was ‘Articulture’ and display and garden makers interpreted the theme broadly. … Read more

Feb192014

I’m taking sides with Andre le Notre. Four hundred years ago he was practicing a type of landscape design that is still valid and revered today. It’s handmade, skillfully practiced, and incredibly beautiful. It is the antithesis of today’s trend … Read more

Feb142014

I first read about Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh, Morocco in the early 1980s in a fashion magazine story about Yves St. Laurent. YSL and his partner Pierre Berge had bought the property, saved it from demolition, and set about restoring … Read more

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Feb12014

How many green walls can boast about looking this good at nine years old…in January? Easily found about two blocks from the Eiffel Tower, Patrick Blanc’s green wall, completed in 2005, on a Jean Nouvel designed museum, has held up … Read more